


Fingerwitch

by henghost



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: Bathing/Washing, F/F, Maids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:54:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25971685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henghost/pseuds/henghost
Summary: Diana's aunt has arranged a marriage between her and Andrew Hanbridge. Akko volunteers to be Diana's handmaiden in order to save her.
Relationships: Diana Cavendish/Atsuko "Akko" Kagari
Comments: 5
Kudos: 83





	1. Akko

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the novel FINGERSMITH by Sarah Waters, which is very good and very gay.

They’d put me in a room with a door that led to Diana’s. I glared at it, there, in the dark. I wondered what she was thinking, dreaming. Just beyond my reach. Just beyond the door that didn’t lock. But I was hers to command now. I could hardly barge in there of my own accord.

Then Diana screamed.

A high and girlish sound that ripped through the walls of her family's manor. I jumped out of the straw bed and raced through the door, directed only by touch. So, so dark. The only light came from the moon, in through her high windows. She sat up in her four-poster bed clutching the covers and pointing at the blackness at the far end. 

“There!” she yelled. “Someone’s there!”

For a brief moment I believed her. I couldn’t see where she was pointing. Only matte-black. But I had to be brave. That was my purpose now. So I investigated, checked every inch of her room, even the drawers.

“Diana, see, there’s no one here. You must’ve had a nightmare.”

“I could’ve sworn,” she said, her voice still quivering. “I swear to you, Akko, someone was here.”

“You should go back to sleep, Diana. You need your rest.”

“Akko, er, would you, um, sleep beside me?”

“Sleep beside you?”

“My old handmaiden used to. When I was much younger. I always slept better with someone else in my bed.”

“Well, if it would help you sleep….”

And I went over to her with my face burning and crawled under her luxurious quilt. She mumbled, “Thank you.” So warm, there beside her. We slept easily.

#

A week before, Diana had told me, “I’m getting married.” She said it in her ever-casual lilt, out on the courtyard.

“Married?” I squeaked. “To who?”

“To _whom_. Andrew Hanbridge.”

“What! I had no idea you two were, you know.”

“Neither did I until last evening. A political decision, I’m afraid. My snake of an aunt wrote to inform me that as part of an increased effort to soothe political tensions between witches and humans I would — in her words — take part in a bipartisan coupling.”

“But they can’t just do that! They can’t just sell you off like a piece of furniture!”

“Indeed they can. My aunt is still head of the family, and therefore has ultimate power over my marriage prospects. An anachronistic rule, perhaps, but there’s nothing I can do.”

“Of course there’s stuff you could do. You could run away. Or turn your aunt into a frog or something. And why does it have to be you, anyway? Why not one of your bitchy cousins?”

“It would hardly be convincing if one of my cousins were to take my place. And besides, if I were to interfere with the process, it would bring shame to the Cavendish household, and I could never live with myself if I did such a thing.”

“I’ll save you. Don’t worry, Diana. I’ll come with you to your home and save you from having to marry that spoiled suit-wearing jackass.”

“I’m not sure my family will tolerate having someone so, um, boisterous as yourself around for very long. The only people allowed in my ancestral home for an extended period of time are relatives and the household staff.”

And that was when I had my bright idea: “Well, then, what if you hire me?”

“Hire you?”

“Yeah. You know, I could be like your assistant or something. That would give me an excuse to hang around while I figure out how to save the day.”

“I suppose my old handmaiden isn’t around anymore….”

“Handmaiden?”

That was how I ended up, a few days later, in the servants’ quarters of the Cavendish Manor. Ms. Anna had given me a uniform to wear, this white and black frock, but it didn’t fit very well and smelled of mothballs. The other staff glared at me as we ate our lunch of broth and beer (both of which made my tongue squirm).

“Ms. Kagari,” said Ms. Anna, “allow me to give you a tour of the building.”

“Sounds great!” I said, and she winced at my enthusiasm.

She led me through the winding corridors, up several flights of crooked stairs. The whole place was freezing, drafty. There were these paintings, too, portraits of Cavendishes past. Diana’s ancestors glared down at me with disappointment, which made me shudder. She took me through to the library, an ancient-looking swimming pool, and finally to my room with the door that led to Diana’s.

“Ms. Kagari,” said Ms. Anna, “if you do anything to harm Ms. Cavendish, I shall flay you alive. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Just then Diana and Andrew walked past us with their arms linked, both stone-faced. I made eye-contact with him, and his breath sort of hitched.

“Diana,” he said, “is that…?”

“Ah, Andrew,” said Diana, “I’d like you to meet my new handmaiden.”

“Handmaiden!” he said, and stepped forward to shake my hand. “I’m sure that will be a pleasure to witness….”

I glared at him and scratched my forehead with my middle finger.

#

Sun came down through the gap in Diana’s enormous silk curtains, down across my face, and stirred me from pleasant dreams. And what was this warmth? Oh, right….

“Diana,” I said, and rubbed her shoulders. “Diana, it’s time to wake up.”

“Urrrmmm,” she said. “Would you prepare my clothing?”

“Prepare your clothing?”

“Perhaps a sundress for today. It’s been so warm out. My closet is just there.”

“I’d rather die than—”

“Akko. These are your duties as my handmaiden. Or would you prefer to return to Luna Nova?”

I scowled and rolled out of her huge bed. Yes, here was her closet. It was like another dimension. Racks and racks of clothing that went on for miles and miles. It took my breath away, to be honest. You could buy a house with only the things within arm’s reach. I ran my fingers over her gowns and blouses and skirts until I found a blue and white polka-dotted sundress that was ugly enough to get my spite across. Really it wasn’t very ugly at all….

Then when I came out of the closet I found Diana with her pajamas in a puddle around her ankles.

“Diana?”

“Yes?”

She had her back to me, thank god, but still the sight of so, so much of her pale skin was like having cold water dumped over my head. “What are you doing?”

“You’d have trouble dressing me if I still had clothes on, would you not?”

I grit my teeth — _Or would you prefer to return to Luna Nova?_ — and walked over to her, close enough I could feel the heat coming off her body, smell her somehow flowery scent. She put her arms above her head. As quick as possible I yanked the sundress over her body.

“Thank you,” she said. My face burned. “Now would you be so kind as to escort me to breakfast?”

“Yes, my lady,” I said with as much acid as I could manage. 

I took her through the long corridors, trying to remember where the dining room was, taking several wrong turns in process, each of which made Diana giggle, yet she refused to tell me the way. 

On our journey she outlined her schedule for me. “After breakfast I must meet with my aunt in the library to discuss matters of business. Then in the afternoon I suppose it would be sensible to spend time with Andrew. And, oh, in the evening I should like a nice hot bath.”

I was glad to get rid of her, if only for a little while.

I ate boiled eggs and drank more of that warm, rotten-smelling beer with the other servants. They glared at me like I’d just killed their mothers. Even the elegant Ms. Anna could barely contain her disgust. I could understand — here I was, just a little girl, handed the cushiest job for nothing, while they’d been toiling away at thankless work for their whole lives in exchange for being allowed to not starve. Still I wished they’d be a little nicer about it all.

#

I had a strange experience when I took Diana to see her aunt in the library. For one, she was fidgeting the whole way, biting at her fingernails, saying things like, “This shall be just awful,” and, “I thought I was _done_ with this a long time ago.” And then when we arrived her copperhead-looking aunt gave an evil grin from the desk at the far end and said, “And who is this, Diana?”

“My dear Aunt,” said Diana, “you remember Ms. Kagari, don’t you? She was here during that head-of-the-family kerfuffle. She has agreed to be my handmaiden while I’m here to see Andrew Hanbridge.”

“Ah, yes. I remember my irritation quite well.”

I performed a sardonic curtsey. Diana went forward to join her aunt at the desk, but when I went forward as well, her aunt screamed. Really, _screamed_. In fact she would not stop screaming until Diana pushed me back a few feet. 

“Akko, my apologies. Servants are not allowed into the library under any circumstances. You may wait in my bedroom. Be here in two hours to pick me up.”

And with that she closed the tall oak door behind her and left me out in the hallway, alone, stunned. I went back to her bedroom trying to parse what that scream meant. 

Maybe I should’ve been trying to uncover some loophole in the whole betrothment thing, but I was exhausted after having difficulty sleeping the previous night, and I wanted to see that closet again. It was like fairy tale in there. I closed the door behind me and took off my drab frock and looked through her clothes until I found a bright yellow ball-gown that looked like it might fit me — Diana must have worn it a _long_ time ago. I put it on and then a pair of little red high-heels as well, and right away I felt like Cinderella.

I stepped out and surveyed myself in Diana’s full-body mirror and felt a surge of bitterness. How did Diana have any right to treat me the way she had when all her life she had been allowed to go around looking like this?

I tried on more of her extravagant garments over the next two hours and eventually decided the aristocrat look was not exactly my style. I hung everything up and put back on my servant’s uniform and went to pick Diana up. 

“How was it?” I asked her.

“I can’t even begin to describe how truly soul-crushing it was. Did you have any luck on the ‘saving the day’ front?”

“Not yet. I’ll keep looking.”

“Andrew told me to meet him near the stables.”

I walked with her the acres and acres it took to reach the stables. The Cavendish Manor seemed to be the size of a small continent. And the lawn never got any less green, the sun any less radiant. Even the stables themselves smelled like it was inhabited not by horses but by pampered poodles. 

Here was Andrew, dressed to ride. Certainly I had come to respect him more than when we had first met, but the sight of his smug grin made my whole body prickle with fury. “Diana,” he said, “shall we go for a little bit of a ride?”

Diana had no expression on her face. She said, “Why not. I shall go change,” and darted into the building. 

Meanwhile Andrew beamed down at me. “Handmaiden, huh?” he said. “How’s that going?”

“Shut up,” I said, and looked away.

“I take it you’ve heard? That Diana and I are to be married? I suppose it was inevitable, but I’m more excited than I thought I would be.”

“Shut up.”

Diana came back dressed like an olympic equestrian, and we all went inside to pick our steeds. Both Diana and Andrew chose tall and muscled chestnut mares. Meanwhile I got saddled (no pun intended) with this little black pony named Sheep who seemed to struggle with the concepts of left and right. I’d never ridden a horse before. But I’d die of embarrassment if I had to admit this to Diana, so I wobbled up to the stirrups and swung my legs over either side of Sheep and prayed no one would notice my shaking fingers and wide eyes.

Gradually Sheep and I got acquainted, though, and soon he was trotting forward at a speed that was slow enough I wasn’t in any danger of vomiting. We stayed a respectful distance behind Andrew and Diana, who stayed close enough together they could speak over the clopping. Too close for my liking. They giggled at each other and didn’t stop talking for the whole ride.

Maybe Diana was more excited than she thought she would be, too….

#

That evening, when the light had turned golden and fiery over the castle, Diana said, “I think it’s time for my bath. Akko, would you be so kind as to draw one for me?”

I sighed and went into her little bathroom and knelt to switch on the hot water and plug her gold-rimmed bathtub. While it filled I went through her soaps and cosmetics, most of which looked like they could’ve come from two centuries ago. Some sparkled green with magic energy. 

Finally when the mirror had steamed over entirely, I switched off the water and called for Diana, who had changed into a pristine white bathrobe and taken off her flats. She slipped out of the robe and dipped into the scalding water and shuddered, and I was stepping out when—

“Akko, where might you be going?”

“To give you some privacy?”

“Then who will wash me? Me?”

“Diana, you can’t be—”

“I would like to try this new scented oil my cousin gave me. She says it has been imbued with white magic.”

There was no silliness in her voice. Diana was nothing if not serious. I pressed my lips together tight and knelt down on the tiled floor beside the tub, picked up the bottle she indicated, and poured some of the herb-smelling oil into my left hand. Thankfully her nakedness was obscured a bit by the gently rippling water, but still I could see her uncovered stomach growing pink from heat, her nipples bright red.

“This won’t be a problem, right, Akko?”

“No. No, not at all, Diana. I was the one who volunteered to be your handmaiden, wasn’t I?”

And I put my hand with the oil on her shoulder, spread the substance across her chest, her stomach, mostly focused on keeping my breath level. 

“You seemed to be getting along well with Andrew,” I said to distract myself.

“Andrew is a good enough man, at heart, I think. He doesn’t deserve what his parents put him through.”

“But you don’t want to marry him, right?”

“What! No — I can think of no fate worse than that. In fact, if — _ouch!_ ”

“What is it?”

“Ugh, it’s this damned tooth. It’s been jabbing into my cheek all day.”

“Wait here — I’ll go get something to dull it.”

And I stood and went over to her vanity in the other room where I’d spotted a thimble earlier in the day. For all her wealth and erudition Diana could be so helpless sometimes. I put it over my thumb and knelt back at her side. “Open your mouth — stay still.”

She pointed at her left canine, and I put my thumb in her mouth and rubbed the thimble against her tooth, which made a noise like, _shhkk shhkk shhkk._ Her hot breath flashed against my palm, made it damp.

After I finished dulling her tooth she got out of the bath, made me hand her a towel, put on a nightgown, and got into bed. I blew out the candles and got in with her. We fell asleep to the sound of the water draining.

#

The next several days followed the same schedule. I dressed her in the mornings, took her to breakfast, then to “business discussions” — whatever that meant — with her aunt, and then to a date (for lack of a better word) with Andrew. Sometimes they’d go riding, or on a stroll through the patch of woods nearby. Once they played something called croquet, which looked incredibly boring. Then in the evenings after our dinners I’d bathe her and go to sleep next to her. (As for my own bathing I eventually broke down and went to a communal bath with the other servant women.)

I was always asking around about the upcoming marriage, but no one said anything useful. Everyone either said they didn’t care or mentioned something about politics. I was beginning to grow desperate.

Then over lunch one day I had this exchange with Ms. Anna (whose glaring at me had gone away somewhat in the intervening time):

“So what do you make of this marriage, Ms. Anna?”

“Oh, that Andrew Hanbridge is a nice enough boy, I suppose. It’s a shame the way the elder Ms. Cavendish is putting it together, however.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, scheduling the wedding for the younger Ms. Cavendish’s eighteenth birthday, and so on.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Don’t you know? There is a clause in the family trust that makes it so if any Cavendish is married after the age of eighteen they receive no dowry whatsoever.”

“Dowry?”

“Money, little one. And quite a lot of it.”

And right then the plan flashed into my head like lightning. I put the pieces together throughout the rest of the day, and in the dark that night with Diana beside me I told her. I explained to her what Ms. Anna had told me, and said, “So this is what we’ll do. Sometime this week the three of us — Andrew, you, and me — will sneak out at night and find a priest to marry you two in secret. Then we’ll tell your aunt you just couldn’t wait, while, quietly, we use the dowry to pay the priest to annul it right away.”

“That’s the only way?” she said.

“You have any better ideas?”

“I suppose not. It’s only that….”

“What?”

“Well, I doubt Andrew would go along with it if we tell him the whole plan, and so he will think we really are getting married because I ‘just couldn’t wait,’ and so we’ll have to spend that night together….”

“Oh. I see what you mean. Well but, okay, don’t tell him I said this, but it’s not like he’s not _not_ handsome.”

“Yes, but, Akko….”

“What?”

“What exactly do husbands and wives do on their wedding night? My mother used to make jokes about ‘closing your eyes and thinking of England,’ but she never told me, well, the specifics….”

All her reading and she never learned this? I sat up in bed and looked down at her shadowy shape. Helpless. So, so helpless. She sat up beside me. 

“Well,” I said, “Andrew’s a teenage boy, and even if he suspects you aren’t _in love_ he’ll want, hmm, how to put this? Well, first, I imagine, he’d want to kiss you.”

“Kiss me? Kiss me how? On my lips?”

I looked at her face, paper-white against the shimmering moonlight, and I remembered the sensation of her hot breath against my palm, her skin in the morning light. I remembered all the time we had spent together. Together on that broom, together at school, the good times and the bad — together for so long now. And I said, “Like this, Diana,” and leaned forward and put my mouth on hers. “He will want to kiss you like this.”

She startled at first and broke away and looked right at me. And then she kissed me back.

“And, Diana,” I said when I could get away from her probing tongue, “he will want—”


	2. Diana

When my mother passed away, and it became clear my aunt would take over as the head of the family, the servants (who were mostly Protestant) began to eye me with suspicion — or was it contempt? I soon discovered what they were afraid of.

After her return to the family manor, one of my aunt’s first priorities was to show me what was hidden behind the tall steel door in the library. Ever the curious child, I had always fantasized about this door, which had stood tall and tantalizing in my puerile imagination. But every attempt to open it — via magic or simple crowbars — had failed.

But one stormy afternoon, my aunt whispered the secret code, and the hinges twisted open.

“Diana,” she said in her slithering voice, “do you know the source of the family fortune?”

My mother had taught me this lesson many times: “Why, of course, it was the great Beatrix Cavendish and her powerful white magic that allowed the family to gain a foothold in the cutthroat world of the early days of Queen Victoria’s reign.”

My aunt simply chuckled and led me inside the steel-door room. Inside there were shelves upon shelves of books; perhaps more books than were in the library proper. 

“Go on,” said my aunt. “Take one down. Have a look inside.”

I obeyed. I took down an enormous, dusty tome and prised it open. My eyes went wide. I did not at that time fully understand what I was seeing, but I knew this was like no other book I had seen before. For one, it was made not of words but of pictures — moving pictures. And in these moving pictures were scenes of — yes, I recognized that woman — the great Beatrix Cavendish performing acts which at that time I could not comprehend. Sometimes with men, sometimes with women.

“This,” said my aunt, “is the true source of our family’s riches, Diana.”

“I don’t understand. What are they — what are they  _ doing? _ ”

“Did my late sister — may God rest her soul — never teach you this? I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me. She was always such a prude.”

My aunt went on to tell me the secret history of my noble heritage. Beatrix Cavendish was not only a witch but a heathen. In other words, she had been quite, well, promiscuous. And in all her supernatural deviance she had recorded, magically, every one of her “encounters” and placed the recordings in these books. 

Needless to mention, this had put her in opposition to not only the British government and monarchy, but also the Church. But in the end, there had been a war on, and without the powerful healing abilities of my ancestor both Crown and Country would have been lost. If not for that, she surely would have been set alight along with her less powerful sisters.

And so in order to finance the construction of my ancestral home, she had offered a service only she could provide. For a price only the wealthiest could afford, she would hold a sort of screening. The men of the aristocracy and nobility would gather round as she picked a book from her many shelves and with her magic wand projected the scenes to a size everyone could see.

“And now, Diana,” my aunt went on, “as the eldest Cavendish of your generation, it is your birthright to continue this unseemly tradition of ours.”

She explained the intricacies of presenting Beatrix’s diaries (this was her word): how to exaggerate the sounds, accentuate the beauty of the human form. At the time I felt no compunctions. These displays of desire were purely abstract in my young mind, and this was my heritage, after all.

My first “performance” was, in fact, where I first met Andrew Hanbridge. I remember it quite clearly. My aunt gave me an exquisite violet evening gown for the occasion. She arranged the dining room to seat the men slated to attend, chose a diary for me to use, and finally set up a podium with a footstool. 

Steadily the men arrived, pale and bloated and dressed in their inky-black suits and ties. Their eyes were wild as a spooked horse’s. A kind of electricity was in the air. After their dinner they arranged themselves in a semicircle around me, and I could feel their gaze, liquid and cloying, all over me and my exposed skin. All of them old and wrinkled, except, of course, for Andrew, who stayed at the periphery and observed with a reluctant fascination.

And then I began: “In the year eighteen-hundred eleven, Beatrix Cavendish made the acquaintance of one Maud Lavender. Maud was a girl of about eighteen and…”

The men crossed their legs and cleared their throats and went all red. Andrew’s father was the worst of them. Dripping in perspiration, breathing heavy enough to interrupt the show. The sight of him gave me my first indication that perhaps something about all this was wrong.

After I was finished and most of the men had retired to the sitting room to discuss business and the night’s proceedings, Andrew introduced himself. He came up to me and lifted my fingers up to his mouth. Always the charmer. 

“Quite a powerful performance, Ms. Cavendish — it is Ms., isn’t it?”

“That it is, Mr. Hanbridge—”

“Andrew, please.”

“Well, Andrew, then. Thank you for such kind words.” 

“Ah, Ms. Cavendish, you may forgo the niceties with me. I am under no illusions about the nature of your work, and of mine. I, too, know what it is like to be in the thrall of your family….”

After that night I attempted to deny my aunt her daily practice sessions. But she was always so much stronger than me. She taught me how healing magic can just as easily become the magic of pain….

#

The handmaiden I had in my youth was redheaded and incompetent. I regret the cruelty I showed to her — her name was Susan — but I suspect it was inevitable given the circumstances in which I was living at the time. After the sessions with my aunt, I would return to her in a foul mood. Even the most minor error would earn her a smack, and her cheeks would turn as red as her hair. I made her sleep in my bed only because I suspected she would rather spend the nights with the boy who worked in the kennels. In the end she had to return to London to live with her family due to a so-called “wasting disease” — a story of which I very much doubted the veracity.

Anyway, this was a mistake I hoped to correct when Akko came to stay with me at our family’s manor. I made a promise that I would treat her with nothing but respect, even if she sometimes drew my ire, as was her wont. Certainly I had much more respect for her than when she first stepped foot in Luna Nova, but I was worried, at the outset, that some of her more obnoxious tendencies would make this promise a challenge to keep. 

I confided these fears in Andrew that first day back. “God bless her heart,” I told him, his arm linked through mine. “But I worry her overconfidence will do her more harm than good in a setting such as this.”

“Diana,” he said, “excuse me for saying so, but I would never have guessed that you had anything but the utmost love for Ms. Kagari, given the way you look at her.”

“And just what, dearest Andrew, do you mean by that?”

“Tell me if I overstep my bounds, Diana, but whenever I have seen you two together, you seem to be totally enamored with her. A bystander might even suspect you have a crush.”

Here I “misstepped” and brought my foot down on top of his. 

Still, these words played again and again in my mind in the days that followed. Even as the practices with my aunt started up again, I could think of nothing but this word: crush. When I strolled through the grounds with Andrew, Akko following doglike behind us, I would sneak a glance at her. At her hair, her minuscule nose, her childish mannerisms. At which point Andrew would point and laugh at me as though we were both schoolgirls.

In the evenings, when she bathed me, I watched her face as a hunter might watch game. Always searching for any sign of weakness. And sure enough, there was the splotch of red across her cheeks — a sight to which I was all too accustomed.

#

During one of our afternoon games of croquet, Andrew said to me, “Diana, I hope I do not break your heart when I say I have no interest in marrying you.”

I said, “Why, I’m positively scandalized to hear you say such a thing,” and knocked a ball through a hoop. 

“It’s not as if I haven’t come to appreciate your, er, charm, in all these years we’ve known each other. But, alas, I fear I am too young.”

“Neither my aunt nor your father will ever cancel this wedding.”

“All too true. However, I’ve been doing some reading. Part of my political education has involved the training to interpret legalese, as it were.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, well, I went through the paperwork associated with your family trust last night, and….”

“And?”

“And if we are to wed on the date of your eighteenth birthday, as your aunt has proposed, you would no longer be entitled to the dowry your late mother set aside for you.”

I had been dimly aware of this (nonsensical) dowry clause, but until then I had not put the pieces together. My damned aunt. 

“So,” continued Andrew. “I’ve come up with a plan. Two days from now, we shall elope. I know a priest who lives in the town nearby, and he has agreed to marry us in secret. However, I shall write a false name on the contract so that our marriage shall not be legally binding, yet you will still have access to the frankly enormous sum of money your mother gave you. Well, I should clarify: I will write a false name in  _ exchange  _ for half of that enormous sum.”

“Mm,” I said. “You have politician’s blood. What do you need so much money for, Andrew? Is all your family’s wealth not enough for you?”

“If you must know I intend to run away. My father wants me to run for our local seat as soon as we’ve married, but I would rather slit my wrists than do such a thing. So I’ll use your money to move to another country. Perhaps Canada, perhaps France — somewhere where they speak French.”

“Fine. I don’t need the money.”

“Fantastic. We’ll do it Friday after the sun is down. Oh, and you mustn’t tell Akko.”

“Why not?”

“In all my meetings with her she has never been — what’s the word? — subtle. And we shall need all the subtlety we can get if we are to pull this off. Tell her that you really have fallen for me — that you just couldn’t wait.”

“I doubt she will believe that.”

“You must make her believe. The scheme depends on it.”

#

That night Akko told me her own version of this dowry scheme.

Akko, Akko, Akko. We were so close that night, warmed by the heat of each other’s body. She looked as though she had saved the world for a second time. She had only saved me, but perhaps those two things were the same in her mind. 

“What exactly do husbands and wives do on their wedding night?”

When I said this she turned crimson. I was drawing from one of Beatrix’s earlier diaries, her encounter with a young woman in the early 1800s. Tonight I would play the role of the naif, and Akko would be Beatrix Cavendish. Certainly she was powerful enough to pull it off. She must have believed me to be the most innocent little lamb….

“Well,” she said, “Andrew’s a teenage boy, and even if he suspects you aren’t  _ in love _ he’ll want, hmm, how to put this? Well, first, I imagine, he’d want to kiss you.”

“Kiss me? Kiss me how? On my lips?”

She gave me a queer look then, and I wondered if her feelings were as strong as mine. And then she said, “He will want to kiss you like this,” and put her mouth on mine, just as I had planned.

The naif’s next line was: “And what else, Akko? What else shall he want?”

“And, Diana, he shall want to do  _ this _ .”

She put her hand up and under my nightgown and lifted the cloth away from my breasts. “How cute,” she said when she saw my nipple, and as soon as she had said it her mouth was on it, and I gasped. She was ravenous that night. “A-and Andrew, I’m sure, will want to remove this silly cloth,” she panted, and pulled my pajamas off my legs and then my lace underwear and with it out of the way put her palm between my legs.

“Will he be so tender as you, Akko?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure, Diana.” She rubbed up and down, her fingers parting me as though they were knives. I had become slippery and wide, wide open for her. She kissed my neck and pushed her middle finger inside me, and I bit her shoulder and whimpered. 

When she had brought me to climax I went off the script. We were past words now, and so I communicated my desires by removing her frock, by putting my head between her knees. Certainly I had never done this before, but I had my ancestor to guide me.

“Diana,” she said between her sighs. “Diana, you’re really good at this. You must be a natural.” 

Afterward we slept tangled together like snakes.

#

In the morning I woke to the sight of her donning her maid’s uniform. She gave me a sheepish look then shuffled out of the room, leaving me to dress myself. I couldn’t blame her — perhaps her whole conception of herself was in flux.

When I saw Andrew in the afternoon he said, “Everything is prepared for tonight. When the sun has set there will be a rowboat on the bank of the nearby river. Get Akko to row you south, where you will encounter a small hut on the bank. I shall be waiting inside this hut, along with the priest. He and his wife have been generous enough to offer us two rooms. One for you and I, and one for Akko.”

“What should I tell her?”

“Tell her that tonight her mistress will become a woman.”

When I saw Akko next, though, I did not tell her that. Instead I told her about Andrew’s plan. As she escorted me through the long corridors I said to her: “Andrew seems to have uncovered the same loophole as you. He intends to marry me tonight — he’s found someone to do it and everything. He doesn't want me to tell you about it.”

“Why not!” she chirped.

“He fears you will give the game away, as it were. He intends to use his share to escape this country.”

“That — that jerk! Why does no one think I can keep a secret?”

“Because you can’t  _ keep your voice down! _ ” — she had practically yelled this last question — “Look, Akko, don’t let on that you know anything. If Andrew thinks that you know, this will all go get much more difficult. If you can manage that, I shall buy you anything you want with the money.”

“Of course I can manage that. I’m a world-class secret-keeper. I think I’d like a dress, like one of those nice gowns in your closet.”

“A gown? I never took you for a gown-wearing type.”

“There’s lots you don’t know about me.”

“Likewise. More than you could possibly know.”

“Last night…”

“Perhaps we should wait to discuss the matter until after all this scheming boils over….”

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry I left in such a hurry this morning….”

“Come now, Andrew is expecting us soon.”

#

Akko led me through the navy-blue nighttime to the burbling river that ran through the property. She had changed into an all-black costume. Always so dramatic. She untied the rowboat and took my hand and helped me to step into it, and then she was at it like a motor engine. Above us the moon hung in the sky, full to bursting, as it always is when witches are on the move.

After half an hour of rowing we came upon a dimly-lit little cottage. Andrew was waiting to help us out of the boat, dressed in his striped suit that he never seemed to take off. He even put a ring on my finger. Akko glared at him with eyes like bullets. Inside a portly priest in full regalia asked me if I took this man to be my husband, and I said, “I do.” Although it probably came out more like, “I do?” Andrew echoed me, and the priest’s wife, a slender old woman dressed all in white, gave us a contract to sign. I put down my own name, and Andrew put down “Warlock Gurglefish.”

Then the elderly couple led the three of us up the stairs and showed us our quarters for the night. Andrew took my hand and yanked me into ours before I had time to speak to Akko. There was only one bed in the room.

“You managed to convince Akko?”

“You have no cause to fret, my sweet husband.”

“Good, good. I suppose tonight is our wedding night, though, and, well, to avoid further suspicion, perhaps we should, er … there are certain  _ noises  _ that are expected of a newlywed couple.”

“Oh, sweet, sweet Andrew….”

Here I crawled into the bed and used my fingers and thoughts of the previous to produce the sounds of nuptial bliss Andrew was so desperate for. Meanwhile he averted his gaze and spent the night on the floor.

In the morning Akko took me into the nearest town where the bank was, and I showed the teller the certificate, and just like that I was thirty-thousand pounds richer. We spent the next few hours wandering through the streets and shopping for gowns.

“Diana,” she said as she picked through a rack of dresses. “Last night, I, uh, couldn’t help but listen in….”

“Oh — that was only a bit of, er, self-help, as it were.”

“ _ Oh _ . Oh. That’s good. I was just worried because, well, I was thinking about the night before  _ that,  _ and, well—”

“Akko, perhaps there are things you should know about me first, before you continue.” And I sat her down in the middle of the department and told her everything. About the true source of my family’s money, about what my intentions had truly been that night. 

“Oh my God,” she said when I was through. “You little  _ demon! _ ”

“Really, Akko, I’m so sorry for dec—”

She cut me off by kissing me. Then she said, “Sorry. I’m just so ex _ cited! _ I had no idea you were so con _ niv _ ing!” My chest felt so light now, and I kissed her back.

A little later we left the store, Akko dressed in a purple satin ball-gown that had cost me two-thirds(!) of my dowry. Andrew would have to face his father on his own….

#

I was packing my bags that afternoon when my dear aunt Daryl came to see me.

“What have you done?” were her first words.

“I have married Andrew. Is that not what you wanted? I apologize we couldn’t wait for the big wedding you had planned — we’re just so in  _ love! _ Plus it was nice to have a small, intimate celebration.”

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done, Diana? You’ve set human-witch relations back a hundred years! And what am I supposed to do about the upcoming diary-reading? You’ve surely plunged this family into ruin.”

“Perhaps  _ you  _ will be plunged into ruin, oh dearest aunt of mine, but I’m afraid I cannot help you — I must return to my studies. You will have to perform the damned diary-reading yourself, you ignorant serpent.”

And I grabbed my bag and brushed past her. She looked as though I had turned her to stone. I found Akko on the lawn, and I grabbed her hand and pulled her onto my broom, and then we were off on our way back to school.


End file.
